Jay said:
DominicCobb said:
Jay said:
TV’s Frink said:
Jay said:
TV’s Frink said:
Jay said:
DominicCobb said:
I don’t buy the “protest” argument at all (seems a little tin foil hat to me). If hardcore fans didn’t like TLJ, they probably know that Solo has nothing to do with it. IX’s performance will be a better indicator of the true response to VIII. I think the “boycott Soylo” group is a pretty minor demo, especially considering most of those people probably saw it anyway.
It’s all speculation, and I agree that IX’s numbers will be a better indicator. I think they’ll be worse than TLJ’s unless there are some clear indicators from Disney that they’re changing direction.
As always with SW, the fact of the matter is most of the audience is made up of casual fans at best. For them I think the main reason is that they still see Star Wars as one single franchise, whereas something like Marvel is a combination of different franchises (which is to say nothing of the fact that Solo’s performance is roughly on par with most Marvel origin movies). I do think the five month gap probably hurt it, as people aren’t used to so much SW at once, and checked out when they felt this one was skippable.
Unless TLJ is what told them it was skippable, because Star Wars itself has become skippable.
It was already skippable the minute TPM was released. Disney made it relevant again.
Box office says different.
Clearly I wasn’t referring to the box office, but regardless, one poor showing and the franchise is dead. Ok.
I was referring to the prequels’ box office. Sorry for not being clear. People still showed up in theaters for them despite the mediocre reviews, which tells us audiences found them relevant.
A lot of people hoped the next one would be better. It’s apples and oranges anyway, “Episodes” vs. spin-offs. The former implies required viewing.
And I never said the franchise was dead because of Solo’s numbers. If TFA proved anything, it’s that Star Wars fans will come back in droves to give the franchise another chance. Solo’s numbers are a message to Disney; they can either rationalize the loss with a bunch of excuses like I’m seeing in this thread, or they can do some soul-searching and ask themselves why TLJ split the fanbase and Solo flopped soon after.
It just seems silly to me to assume that if there’s a message about Solo it has to do with the quality of TLJ. Saying that the reason has more to do with the concept and placement of the film at hand (and not the reaction to a mostly unrelated film) is an excuse is ridiculous. It’s about paying attention to far more relevant factors.
I’m also not sure what you’re implying in regards to the “why” TLJ split the fanbase and what especially that’d have to do with Solo.
I’m not sure why everyone is placing so much weight on the idea that Solo’s lack of a number makes it this entirely different beast subject to its own rules. Bring up RO as a comparison, which did just fine, and the excuse becomes the time of year, even though Memorial Day weekend has been a haven for blockbusters for decades. Refute that idea and the poor turnout is because some unrelated comic book movies came out the week before and stole its thunder.
And why wouldn’t a dislike for TLJ translate into a lower likelihood of seeing Solo, especially if it’s somehow “less than” a numbered Star Wars film? I skipped RO in theaters because I wasn’t a fan of TFA. It’s a franchise, not a bunch of one-offs.
Seems to me you guys are drawing this firm line between Solo and everything else even though there’s no evidence this line exists, and then you brush aside RO’s relative success as a mere issue of release timing. RO was no more “necessary” than Solo and it was released at a time of year when people are busier than they are during Memorial Day weekend. I don’t think anyone, even Disney, expected Solo to succeed like a numbered film, but to fall so far short of RO’s numbers was a shocker.
I’m not saying fans’ dissatisfaction with TLJ explains Solo’s poor showing in its entirety; a loss that big involves many factors. But I’m not going to brush it aside as some anomaly either.
At the end of your post you say it’s the subject of many factors, yet the rest of your post seems to dismiss everything save “people hate Disney SW now” as merely an excuse. There’s no one magic bullet theory that explains all of this. I personally believe all those things you mention are factors. I just happen to think that “some people hated TLJ” is further down the list than things that are far more relevant. BvS by most accounts was one massive, steaming pile of shit, but people still turned out for Wonder Woman.
And I think there a lot of obvious reasons why RO did better. I think first of all people are forgetting that RO’s box office was something of a surprise - it exceeded expectations due to a handful of things… being only the second SW movie in a decade, having the novelty of the first spin-off/non-episode film, and a killer marketing campaign that sold the film as a true event, all in addition to the December release date which was far less competitive (and a buzz at the time that made it the “movie of the moment,” for whatever reason). All that plus I think generally most people considered it to be a better film than Solo (something I disagree with), which is on top of possibly the biggest factor of all - that Solo is a Han Solo movie starring someone other than Harrison Ford, which is a tough sell considering how integral to the character he was (whereas RO was all new characters without that baggage). As I’ve stated before in this thread, I don’t think putting Solo out in December would’ve helped a whole lot (how much, who knows).
All of which is to say, when a movie disappoints, usually the biggest reason is the movie itself.
